Greensburg bridge work to force detours

A Greensburg street will be blocked off for the winter and spring so a bridge can be replaced.

Additionally, motorists will have to contend with uneven pavement and bumpy spots for a few more months on two city streets where utility companies have been working.

Workers will replace the Laird Street bridge at the entrance to Offutt Field, resulting in the street being closed to both immediate sides of the bridge for several months, said City Administrator Sue Trout and city engineer Eric Robl. A detour will be set up, they said.

Paving of sections of East Pittsburgh and East Otterman streets, where Peoples Natural Gas and the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County have been working, has been delayed to the spring, PennDOT officials said.

A contractor could start the Laird Street bridge work as soon mid-November, Trout said.

“It's not going to affect football games (at Offutt),” Trout said, “because the games will be over.”

City, state and federal officials have been considering replacing the bridge over Jacks Run for more than a decade.

“The bridge needs to be replaced, no doubt about it,” Trout said.

PennDOT officials are overseeing the approximately $1 million project. State and federal governments are paying 95 percent of the tab, with Greensburg contributing about $52,000, Trout said.

PennDOT officials project the bridge work will be finished by July 22.

Business owners and others on Laird Street are aware of the work being done, Trout said.

“(Customers) will still have access to those locations,” she added.

Gina Burkett, owner of Gina's Hair Design on Laird Street, said if the street were closed at its intersection with South Urania Avenue that would create problems for her.

“My customers, I assume, will be able to get in,” she said. “That's the busiest time of the year for us. It would close me if they shut it down completely.”

The intersection may have to be closed for the contractor to bring materials to the work site, but such closures should be temporary, Robl said.

PennDOT officials said they realize the work will be an annoyance for motorists, businesses and others in the work area.

“Anytime a road is closed, it's going to have some inconvenience,” PennDOT spokesman Jay Ofsanik said. “But being a local bridge in a city, there's a lot of ways for people to get around that.”

“They're improvements that have to be made,” Greensburg Mayor Ron Silvis said. “I guess they have to put up with it. But Laird Street shouldn't have too much (of a) problem.”

Workers initially will trim trees and relocate utilities, Trout said.

In addition to the bridge replacement, workers will be updating signs and pavement markings.

In the spring, PennDOT workers will be paving sections of East Otterman and East Pittsburgh streets, where motorists have been inconvenienced by work by the utilities working on two main city arteries.

PennDOT delayed paving because of the utilities' projects, Ofsanik and others said. The water authority finished its work about two months ago.

“They indicated they had to do line replacement, and we worked with them and moved our paving to next spring,” Ofsanik said.

PennDOT decides when work is done on its streets, and even if city officials don't like the delay in paving they have little recourse, city planner Barbara Ciampini said.

“These are PennDOT streets, so PennDOT makes the decisions regarding their own streets,” she said. “The city has been involved in the public utility repairs ... to these streets as a courtesy to our residents for communication purposes because construction on these streets generally impacts our city.”

Representatives of the natural gas company have assured city officials that Main Street, where Peoples has been replacing lines, will be paved before the end of this month, Trout said.

“That has been their focus, to get Main Street done,” she said.

Bob Stiles is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-836-6622 or bstiles@tribweb.com.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.